Tip dressers have rotating cutters that are used to clean and reshape copper electrode tips after use in production welding operations. Weld tips for resistance spot welding (RSW) can become worn, deformed or contaminated over the course of repeated welding operations. Worn RSW electrode tips tend to produce welds of lower quality.
Dressing RSW tips is performed with a tip dresser that has rotating cutters that remove copper from the worn electrode tips until the weld tips are returned to their original shape. RSW tips are normally dressed to have a cylindrical side wall that terminates at a convex distal end. The convex distal end may have a desired radius, for example, a radius of 40 mm, or other geometry.
Conventional resistance spot welding electrode dressers have limited if any control over the amount of material removed from each individual electrode face during the dressing process. In addition, the variables that control the conventional dressing process—dress force, dress time, and cutter velocity—do not adapt to changing conditions of the electrode surface, cutter blade and electrode alignment. This lack of control over metal removal during the dressing process can result in poor dress quality or force excess material removal, reducing the life of the electrode and causing additional equipment downtime to change and maintain electrodes. Removing excessive amounts of copper reduces the useful life of the tip and wastes the expensive copper tips.
This disclosure is directed to solving the above problems and other problems as summarized below.